Warm? NF2-400 Mobo for $61, free ship, free hat

[AzzKlowen]

I missed the free hat when I ordered, but $61 shipped from Newegg with Fedex express saver and a free Newegg hat...that's warm right? The board is a Shuttle AN35N-Ultra Retail Box.

Product page... http://www.us.shuttle.com/specs.asp?pro_id=280

 

[JoyDutta]

Originally posted by: AzzKlowen
I missed the free hat when I ordered, but $61 shipped from Newegg with Fedex express saver and a free Newegg hat...that's warm right? The board is a Shuttle AN35N-Ultra Retail Box.

Product page... http://www.us.shuttle.com/specs.asp?pro_id=280

Definitely hot...

 

[wfay]

What do you think about this board for $61 shipped vs the Biostar M7NCD Pro for $45 shipped after a $15 rebate? Specs look pretty similar, both are NF2 Ultra-400 and MCP.

 

[ironk]

i don't think this has dual channel, or does it?

/edit: it does. good deal, imo. except i am a little wary of shuttle.

 

[sm]

whats the opinion between this and biostar nForce deal

 

[ironk]

well, lets look at the reviews:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=shuttle+AN35N+ultra+review&btnG=Google+Search

 

[wfay]

only real difference i can find between the 2 boards (other than a few bucks) is that the Shuttle has Optical SPIDF output if you buy a bracket from them, and it does not appear that the Biostar has that feature either built-in or as a bracket add-on. i could be completely wrong but i have not seen any mention of this bracket for the Biostar in any product descriptions, reviews of the board, or on Biostar.tw site.

if optical digital sound output is important to you, and you plan to use the onboard sound, i guess the shuttle is the mobo for you. otherwise its a toss-up.

 

[aldamon]

The Shuttle has mounting holes. That's why I bought it instead of the Biostar.

 

[Grovebaby]

No holes on the Biostar?

 

[JoyDutta]

Originally posted by: sm
whats the opinion between this and biostar nForce deal

Biostar is the most basic configuration. Advantages of buying the shuttle over the biostar...I mean the ones that I can remember off the head:

1. SPDIF
2. More FAN connector
3. Much better manual
4. Better brand
There are more...

 

[JoyDutta]

Originally posted by: aldamon
The Shuttle has mounting holes. That's why I bought it instead of the Biostar.

what is that supposed to mean. The biosatr board is also very good IMO.

 

[BG4533]

Originally posted by: JoyDutta

Originally posted by: aldamon
The Shuttle has mounting holes. That's why I bought it instead of the Biostar.

what is that supposed to mean. The biosatr board is also very good IMO.

I am guessing they are reffering to heat sink mounting holes around the CPU. These would be used to mount a HS like the SLK900U and many others.

Brian

 

[mechwarrior]

%^^&*! I ordered yesterday and didn't see the link for the free Customer Appreciation Gift. You can get a hat or a tee shirt.

 

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: JoyDutta

Originally posted by: aldamon
The Shuttle has mounting holes. That's why I bought it instead of the Biostar.

what is that supposed to mean. The biosatr board is also very good IMO.

Not if you want to use water blocks or heat sinks that need mounting holes. The Biostar doesn't have them and the Shuttle does. With virtually the same feature set, the Shuttle is a no brainer if have any interest at all in these things.

 

[jna]

My experiences with a "really good" Shuttle board, the AK35GT/2, didn't impress me.

#1) Supposedly, the board supported a 1/5 multiplier, but I couldn't get it much over the 150's, let alone 166. And, of course, with a 1/4 multiplier, this lead to hard drive corruption.

The same chip (AGOIA 1600+) ran beautifully at 170FSB on an Epox 8K3A.

#2) I never was able to narrow down the problem, but with several different pieces of Samsung PC2700, and PC2100, it would set the command rate to 1T - not sure if this was programmed in the SPD, but I could not find a single piece of memory that would boot up stably with the board - in each case, if the machine would POST at all, I had to manually change the command rate in order to boot an OS.

The same pieces of memory ran beautifully with a 1T command rate on the same 8K3A.

These really aren't minor issues - sure, the chipset isn't specc'ed for 166mhz, but the memory issue took me weeks to track down - I thought the board was defective. It's not, it just automatically sets the command rate to an unstable setting.

So, I am reluctant to buy another Shuttle board, even for cheap. On the other hand, I haven't had a bad experience yet with Epox boards (I have owned 4). And price isn't a factor, I have had problems with VERY EXPENSIVE Asus boards as well.